


what happens to the heart

by blindbatalex, Bluejay141519



Series: A Game of Shadows [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Boston Bruins, Pre-Slash, Whump, everyone has lots of regrets, except for sweeney, idek what this is lol, some - Freeform, who has none
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 14:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21411568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/pseuds/blindbatalex, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluejay141519/pseuds/Bluejay141519
Summary: Sweeney smiles, shark-like and deeply unsettling.  “You are the one person Tuukka Rask cares for more than anyone else in the world,” he says sweetly.  “You don’t believe that.  This is your chance to see which one of us is right.”Or, an AU where David and Tuukka are spies.  David agrees on a questionable mission and Tuukka makes a mistake.
Relationships: David Pastrnak/Tuukka Rask
Series: A Game of Shadows [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1543552
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	what happens to the heart

**Author's Note:**

> By Alex -- though it was Blue who sold me on this ship, and this is a part of a collaboration between the two of us.
> 
> Title from the Leonard Cohen song by the same name, but what else is new.

**3\. The Aftermath**

When they let him in, Tuukka stands in the middle of the room. He stares at the heart monitor flashing in regular intervals and the even rise and fall of David’s chest until he can convince himself of their steady pattern.

Then, he turns around and leaves because he can’t be in that room. Not after what he has been through. Not after what he has been told. 

“We needed the real deal.” Sweeney said while they were still waiting. “And nothing gets the attention of staff and security like a young man dying in the arms of his beloved.”

Tuukka wanted to murder him, right there and then. Beloved. How dare he say that word. Beloved. For all the care he has taken, for all the distance he has kept, how easy he must have been to read in the end. Beloved. He wants to murder Don Sweeney and then David for how every single feeling you have in this line of work gets turned into a weapon and it’s not even by the bad guys.

_Beloved._

That is a mistake he won’t be making again.

**2\. The Act**

David knows he has made a mistake the moment Tuukka looks at him. 

He has been in pain before, a lot of it, it’s kind of in the job description, but- Today in the upscale lobby of the bank they are targeting, known for its shady dealings, his heart spasms hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs. His hand flies up to clutch his chest, God knows what expression he has on his face, and Tuukka stops and turns to him, touching his forearm lightly. 

“David,” he says under his breath. He sounds terrified and David knows he has made a terrible mistake long before he collapses onto the marble floor. Knows he should have said no.

If this is what a heart attack actually feels like, it is decidedly not a fun way to go. His chest feels like it is being trampled over by a herd of horses running this way and that. He grips Tuukka’s shoulder blindly, trying and failing to get a proper amount of air into his lungs and Tuukka lowers both of them to the floor.

“Just breathe,” Tuukka tells him as he unfastens David’s scarf and then his coat with deft fingers. There is a look in his eyes that David has never seen before. David tries, so he can have enough air to say-

“Tuuks.”

Tuukka barks at someone to call an ambulance, (and sure enough staff and customers are gathered around them, staring with wide eyes) before he turns back to David.

“Hey.”

Tuukka musters up a smile somehow, meant to be reassuring except for that horrible fear in his eyes. His fingers find David’s carotid artery which only makes it worse.

“I’m sorry,” David mumbles. He should follow that up with something but the lights are too bright and the noise from the onlookers and his guilt are drowning out his thoughts.

Tuukka brushes away his hair and then doesn’t stop, fingers carding and carding through his hair in a rhythmic motion. It would be soothing — it is soothing — except for the edge of desperation to it.

“You are going to be just fine,” Tuukka says. “Just stay with me, alright, stay with me David.”

David nods. Tries. He should have talked to Tuukka. Should have told him.

“Should have told you-”

Tuukka presses a kiss onto his forehead.

“Tell me when you are better. I will tell you--David there is so much I am going to tell you when you are better.”

As if on cue, he gets hit with a fresh wave of pain — worse than the ones that came before. The world is off its axis when he opens them and the lobby is spinning so he closes them again. His heart is doing something it absolutely should not be in his chest, like it can’t unclench, and he feels like he is falling.

“Hey, wake up, you need to stay with me,” he hears Tuukka calling, but he can’t follow it back. Tuukka is scared. Tuukka is so scared. Someone calls to get the AED unit in the distance as sound fades away.

With the last sliver of consciousness he has left, David thinks he hears Tuukka say ‘I love you,’ as if it’s a prayer to call him back.

He thinks he should worry whether this is the three percent chance Sweeney was telling him about. 

He worries about the look — the hurt — on Tuukka’s face when they tell him instead.

** 1\. The Question**

They want him to walk into a bank that may or may not be harboring documents related to an international crime ring in one of its safeboxes, with Tuukka Rask by his side, and take a custom-created poison that will mimic a heart attack so that Coyle can sneak downstairs in the resulting chaos. Oh, and the best part is they won’t tell Tuukka so he will think David is actually dying.

There are so many things that are wrong with this plan David doesn’t even know where to begin.

He huffs unhappily and asks the only question he can think of.

“Why?”

Literally, why.

Sweeney tells him it’s their only way in. They need those documents and security at the bank is way too high for them to sneak someone in as personnel.

“And,” he continues, “everyone is fascinated with death. Old people having heart attacks is boring but a twenty-something dying in the arms of the man who loves him-” He sucks in a pointed breath and looks right into David “-no one can look away from that, including their security.”

David catches only one part of that sentence.

“I don’t-” he starts, “he doesn’t-” because Tuukka doesn’t. Sure, he is- _nicer_ to David than most other agents he works with and they have a surprisingly good time whenever they have some hours to kill while on the job. Sure, his muttering at David’s antics almost sounds fond at this point, and there was the one time after a close call he hugged David so tight David thought he was going to break something, and sure he wouldn’t _enjoy_ anyone he works with dying let alone from something as boring as a heart attack, but. They aren’t- Tuukka doesn’t.

He stands up. 

“Don’t you have someone better to play the part like Brad and Bergy?”

Cassidy makes a face, tells him that they are ‘unavailable’ whatever that means while Sweeney stares him down until he is sitting down again.

He steeples his fingers in the dark wood table and raises an eyebrow.

“Don’t you want to know?”

“Know what?” David counters. 

Sweeney smiles, shark-like and deeply unsettling.

“You are the one person Tuukka Rask cares for more than anyone else in the world,” he says sweetly. “You don’t believe that. This is your chance to see which one of us is right.”

David stares at him open-mouthed. 

This whole thing is mad. Utterly and truly mad.

*

“And oh David?” Sweeney calls just as David is walking out the door. David stops, feeling numb.

“I’d update my will if I were you. Apparently there is a three percent chance you might actually die.”

**Author's Note:**

> On the scale of all fic ideas I came up with this is one of the most dumb but it also would not leave my head so it had to be written. If you for some reason liked it please drop me a line below -- comments are what keep me going! I'm also on tumblr @blindbatalex if you want to come and say hi, my ask box is always open. <3


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